We asked the organizers of the Swedish-American Life Science Summit a couple of questions about their upcoming event in Washington D.C. April 11-12th.

Why SALSS Goes to Washington?

“SALSS is based on well established Swedish-American business relationships and Barbro Ehnbom’s long-lasting networking on both sides of the Atlantic. When we received a proposal to arrange SALSS at the amazing House of Sweden in Washington we felt it was a great honor. In addition, Washington D.C. is a very important city for all life science companies aiming to market themselves in America.”

What are your hopes and expectations on the event?

“To further strengthen Swedish-American relationships within the FDA, politics, and economy. We also hope that the event will lead to succesful funding by American investors in young Swedish life science companies.”

Could you share some highlights from the program?

“From the political sphere in America we are proud to present no one less than Chief Deputy Whip and Congress woman Diana DeGette, a passionate promoter of life sciences and its importance in society. From Sweden we can proudly present Helene Hellmark Knutsson, the Minister of higher education and research and Ambassador Karin Olofsdotter. At SALSS we like to highlight succesful female investors and corporate executives. Another strong woman who joined the SALSS family last year is the young and brilliant scientist Dr Canan Dagdeviren from MIT where she runs the Media Lab. She will speak about exciting research within wearable electronics. Dr Paulina Hill from Polaris Partners is one of several investors at the event and she shares her experiences from early investments/support in life science companies. Dr Jan Lundberg, head of R&D at Eli Lilly, will present his company’s purchase policy and also explain to us to what SALSS ALL ABOUT BRAINS in Stockholm this summer will be about. Last year we awarded for the first time the SALSS Rising Star and the winner, Coala Life, will present their company together with a number of other exciting Swedish upcoming companies. Finally, according to tradition, the conference is concluded with some well chosen words from Dr William Haseltine, founder of the Human Genome Project and one of our leading scientists and philanthropists.”